Seasons Change
by Penguinlet
Summary: Zutara oneshot for the LJ community contest


**Disclaimer:** I don't own or am affiliated with _Avatar: The Last Airbender_. I wish otherwise though.

* * *

**Seasons Change**

_Goodbye, Zuko. Don't try to find me. _

And with that, she left, without so much as a backwards glance. She had every right to.

_How sad it is, that such love could beget such pain._

His weary eyes drooped, then closed. And he remembered.

* * *

The wildflowers were just beginning to bloom, peeping out of the thawed earth like so many beautiful maidens awakening from a long slumber. He had picked a small bouquet of pinks and blues, feeling uncomfortably like an awkward schoolboy. Two decades of war and travel hadn't been conducive to his social skills.

It was different now. The war was finally over, the pain and anger and strife finally quieted. The Avatar reigned over the world, maintaining peace and healing those heavily scarred by more than a century of war. The Water Tribe boy had grown into a handsome and strong young man, pursued by women of all elements, of all ages. The last news he had heard about the Water boy was that he had married a Kyoshi warrior and was happily settled with a baby on the way.

And then there was her. She too, had been inundated with marriage proposals. Why wouldn't any healthy, red-blooded man want her? The youngest Waterbending master ever, the skilled fighter, the companion of the Avatar. Beautiful, too.

How he had ever won her heart, he would never know. Perhaps it was their long history together, both as opponents and as allies. Perhaps the old adage, that fire and water could either destroy or fuel one another, was true. Or perhaps his crazy uncle had finally crossed the line and poured love potion into her cup. Who knows?

For whatever reason, she had turned down all other men's propositions and pleas. And now they were in love. So deeply, beautifully, accidentally in love.

There was no way to explain the way he felt when he gazed into her eyes, when she sighed and snuggled deeper against his chest, when she touched his arm and smiled. How could mere words or pictures describe the beauty of being in love? What symbols, letters, sounds, or movement could encapsulate the emotions and experience of being with the one that he thought to be his whole world, his life, his soul?

The only words that he could summon were so simple and yet so excruciatingly difficult.

She opened the door to her Omashu cottage retreat. A smile – that dazzling smile! – slipped onto her lips.

He knelt. Her eyes grew wide.

_Katara, will you marry me?

* * *

_

Oh, it was hot, so hot. The sun beat relentlessly down on the parched dirt, scorching the land and all that dwelt within it. Everyone was inside, waiting out the worst of the heat by napping in their hammocks. Not a living creature without an ounce of sense stirred; unless to rise slowly and creep off for a cool drink.

He sweltered, though he was stripped bare to the waist and clad only in loose silk pants. Even the fire perpetually flowing through his veins couldn't compete with the heat of this sultry afternoon. Sweat coursed from his shaven scalp in a sticky rivulet towards his jawline, where it slid sensuously over his collarbone and slipped over his exposed chest. Idly, he wondered why he hadn't taken his wife's suggestion to visit her home in the South Pole seriously.

Her distinctive scent – something of juniper, pine, and musk – reached his nose, even in the heavy and stale air. He smelled her coming before the creak in the floorboard announced her presence.

Looking up, he let his jaw drop open and hang. The evaporation from his mouth cooled him just a bit, anyway.

_I didn't believe it could get any hotter. _

She was in a turquoise sundress of some light fabric that swung and clung in all the right places. Her heavy chestnut hair was twisted up in an elaborate knot, but wisps had escaped the ribbon's clutches and hung lazily about her face in tendrils. She was stunning.

Smiling softly, she stepped towards him and shut his dangling jaw with one delicate finger. Her touch, however neutral, was electrifying. Over two years of marriage and still the power of her against him never ceased to sizzle straight to his core – and lower.

Sighing about the heat, she dropped next to him in the hammock, specially made to accommodate the Fire Lord and his beloved comfortably. Her eyes closed as she tipped her head back, enjoying the slight rocking sensations.

His eyes flowed hungrily over her form, drinking in every detail of her body. Her scent was stronger now that she was next to him, and it slunk into his senses, enveloping his muzzy mind with its heady sweetness. Her neck turned gracefully away from him, a smooth arc. Lower, the soft fabric stretched over the ample globes of her breasts and raced across her flat belly, finally gathering halfway down her tawny legs, tucked neatly under her body.

She stretched luxuriously and the dress drew tighter against her chest, outlining their curves. His groin tightened as well. He could see now that she was wearing no breast band. His pulse quickened and a new wave of heat surged through his blood, almost matching the muggy temperature outside.

Licking dry lips, he continued to rake her body with his gaze. He drifted his eyes lower, to the soft spot just below her navel. In a flash of memory, he recalled the way she had shuddered when he had paused there last night to caress the spot with his lips. With that, the pleasant tension below his own navel burned even more intensely.

She turned abruptly and glimpsed him mentally ravishing her body. His gaze snapped up at her movement and he looked sheepish to be caught hankering after her like a platypus-bear after roast duck.

A mischievous light came into her eyes as she shifted her weight and wrapped her legs around him before he could react. He allowed himself only a brief second of surprise before he lost himself in the smooth length of her legs. Reaching out, he ran his hands under the sundress and along the taut skin until it reached the gentle swell of her hips.

She wasn't wearing any undergarments there either.

The stifling heat of the afternoon was pierced by squeals and thumps coming from the West wing of the Fire Palace.

* * *

They reunited with the Avatar near his old temple, high in the mountains. While she laughed at the monk's excited antics he stood a ways apart to pat the Avatar's airbison, who was aging magnificently. His brother-in-law and his family would be arriving later that day. She was beside herself with excitement, as it would be the first she had seen her family since the wedding, over three years ago. He was a little apprehensive; to be expected, since her brother had come after him with his boomerang after she had first broken the news of their marriage to him.

His wife and the Avatar had moved on to the gardens, leaving him behind. He gritted his teeth. Even after all this time, he hated being ignored or forgotten. Too many bad memories of his painful adolescence. He berated himself for still reacting poorly when she chose to pay attention to anyone other than him, which had been more frequently in the last month. Ever since they had received the Avatar's invitation to stay at the temple, she had spoken of nothing but how she missed the adventures with her friend and her brother. Once, in his aggravation, he had thrown an expensive vase at her in an aberrant fit of envious frustration.

He had missed, of course. She had ducked swiftly, with the lightning reflexes of a bending Master. Besides, didn't she know that he could never hurt her?

His aging uncle had come to speak with him later that afternoon. She must have told him. Nephew and uncle had argued for hours, about everything from how he had been shirking his royal duties to be with her, to the way she was being treated – at which he had snapped that his uncle should shut up, should shut up because he had no idea what it took to make a successful marriage.

They had parted on horrible terms, and the next day the old man set sail for a distant village on the furthermost corner of the nation. He still remembered the incredible sorrow in his uncle's eyes during their heated debate, and the mournful look the wise, whiskered face held as the elderly general uttered the last words he would hear from his uncle.

_How sad it is, that such love could beget such pain._

His reverie ended and he found himself with a delicate bluebonnet blossom clutched in his hand, crushed under the clenched fist. He began heading in the direction that he last saw her go, the anger from his memory fading with each step. What did his uncle know about love anyways, being a bachelor after a failed marriage and a deceased son?

He caught up to the two friends, still chatting animatedly about those exciting days long gone. One look at her face told him that there would be no chance of getting her coveted attention, not for the rest of the day or even the remainder of the week. He scowled; a glower that his angst-ridden, lost teenage self would have been proud to make. He loved it when something made her happy.

But he hated when it wasn't him.

* * *

Lying on the thick sealskin blankets, she had never looked frailer, and yet life sparked from her pain-hazed eyes. A thin wail split the cold air, quickly muffled by the mounds of feathery snow around them.

As she drew the complaining mass of cloth towards her tear-stained face to shush and soothe, he stood there, seething. Steam rose from his body in roiling swirls of blind fury. Fuming, he towered over her splayed figure, the beginnings of flames flickering from his fingertips.

She looked back up at him, defiant even in grief and pain. The infant squalled even louder, as if sensing the impending tempest that would surely destroy it and its mother.

With great effort, she staggered to her feet, never breaking her gaze. A livid bruise raged across her eye, spreading to her cheekbone. Scarlet blood trickled from split lips; seeped from between her legs.

Slowly, deliberately, she shifted the bundle in her arms so the newborn's ruddy face, screwed up against the bright harshness of its new world, was turned toward him. Fresh rage welled up inside him as he saw the child.

He could not contain nor check his fury. Some deep part of him cried out for him to stop, to stop being so irrational, so blind, so stupid as to hurt the woman he loved and the child they had created together.

He couldn't; the fire had taken over and obliterated all reason from his mind. In that moment, he hated her. She had dashed all of his hopes, all of his dreams, his entire future to the ground.

_You are the reason why I don't have an heir._

She spoke in a steely voice. In a flash, his fist shot out and flame burst into life, ready to sizzle and burn as soon as it hit her tender, exposed skin. Her hand flashed forward as well, the baby transferred to the other arm, and a shield of shimmering water flew up from the snow underfoot, but she was not quick enough.

Fire vaporized water and the impact of the blow threw her back.

She fell, sprawling haphazardly onto the frozen ground. With one arm flung out to break her fall, she did not have the strength or balance to keep the precious bundle cradled in her other arm from upsetting. The infant bounced out into the snow, howling in discomfort and confusion.

Her face mirrored her daughter's sobs.

* * *

_Goodbye, Zuko. Don't try to find me. _

And with that, she left, without so much as a backwards glance. She had every right to.

_Winter is so cold.

* * *

_

**A/N:** This was written for the LiveJournal community katarazuko and its fan-fic/art/icon contest. The theme was "The Four Seasons."

Truth be told, I am incredibly proud of this. There's congruity, a nice flow, and bittersweetness. I especially like the way I did the seasons and even worked in a little of the elements there. Squeal! I'm so happy.

I'll be back to my regular fanfic this weekend, hopefully getting Chapter 6 up before Tuesday. Happy long weekend to you all!

_Addendum, 2/18/06, 10:15PM_

I was getting several reviews/comments about the ending and confusion regarding it. The idea was borrowed from history and its favoritism of the male. I used the obsolete notion that only a son was legitimate to inherit the throne and that if the woman did not produce said son, it was pretty much her fault. Yes, that used to happen. So Zuko's a bit archaic and sexist and blames his poor Katara for giving him a daughter who can't continue the family name. Also, I've always seen Zuko as a wee bit obsessive and controlling, and there could be two ways that it'd go, and this is telling the bad story. Poor Zuko; he never quite got over how his daddy messed him up and has now, as someone put it, turned into "mini-Ozai."


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